We just launched our new PE construction, it is an elegant upgrade to traditional polyurethane boards that you can clearly see and feel.

PE boards use our specially formulated Ultra Bright epoxy resin, which has two major benefits. The boards are stunningly whiter and will stay white longer. They have a quality look and glow that other boards don’t have. You have to hold it up to another new board to believe the difference. Take it into the sun for the full effect but make sure you are wearing sunglasses, even on an overcast day.

The whiteness isn’t where the real magic is, it’s only a side benefit. What is really impressive about our new PE boards are things you can only feel – the mechanical properties of the layup.

Imagine two identical boards with identical layups, i.e: the same glassing. The only change is that one resin (called the “matrix” in composite engineering) is Ultra Bright resin. The competing matrix is the top name brand polyester. If you apply identical foot pressure to each layup, until the deck lamination failed, you can measure the fatigue strength, of the resin. We did this with use testing machines to measure “cyclic loading”. With repeated cyclic loading we can measure each resin’s performance accurately to failure. What we found was the top polyester fails after about 200,000 cycles – we thought that was pretty good, however, our Ultra Bright resin fails at 1,000,000 cycles. That means that a PE board will feel new and alive up to 5 times longer than an identical board built without the Ultra Bright resin.

The failure of the matrix is the result of fatigue. Fatigue is the result of micro cracking. Resins with low elongation fatigue much faster as they cannot stretch or flex and return for very long. Each time a load cycle takes place, the resin is stressed, and micro cracking begins. With each cycle, more micro cracking occurs and performance takes a dive. You know the feeling because you know that the board has lost its “liveliness” or feels ‘dead’. Our boards constructed with Ultra Bright have higher elongation and toughness. They are able to flex and return thousands of more cycles, making them fell new and lively for much longer.

The flex and longevity are awesome by themselves but when you consider that we take it another step, PE construction is a huge upgrade. With Ultra Bright alone we have a performance board that lasts longer but feels familiar from wave one. To go even further, we added improved glass fibers that bond better and improve the direction the board flexes to increase drive.

If you look closely at a PE board you can see tip to tail stripes and small lines at 45 degree angles across the board. This is the flat weave stitched biaxial glass, layed up directly on the core. Our biaxial fibers are at +/-45 degrees across the board. In a bottom turn the flex is directed tip to tail and the twist is minimized because of the fiber orientation. Less twist equals more drive. And, because our biaxial fibers are flat and not round, there is less matrix between the glass and the core. So the bond is much greater. With flat fibers directly on the foam, we have a greater glass to resin ratio, which equals a better bond. To the surfer this means there is less weight, and greater “point load” resistance.

We are pretty excited about this new construction. Visit our web site to view our range of PE boards by 7S, Haydenshapes and Aloha. And be sure to check them out your local dealer.

Corey Davis
Product Manager
Global Surf Industries